COVID booster shots will be given to Stanislaus residents 65 and older. Anyone else?
An FDA panel voted Friday to recommend booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people age 65 and older and high-risk individuals, but rejected a proposal to make them available for the general public.
The FDA still must decide whether to go along with the panel of medical experts, which disagreed with a Biden administration proposal to make COVID booster widely available. An advisory committee with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could determine what high-risk individuals are eligible for the extra shot of Pfizer to guard against severe illness.
Stanislaus County public health was preparing a plan for delivering COVID booster shots to thousands of residents in late September or early October pending FDA clearance of the Pfizer booster vaccine.
A county spokeswoman said Friday afternoon booster doses for the two eligible groups — seniors and those at high risk — will be provided locally once more is learned from the FDA and CDC next week. The FDA panel of experts was favorable to giving booster doses to healthcare workers and other employees who risk exposure to COVID while at work, according to the Associated Press.
“The county has enough vaccines for the eligible population; however, we will limit walk-ins and add more appointments at our vaccination clinics,” Spokeswoman Maria Blanco said.
The booster vaccine will be offered to seniors 65 and older and high-risk individuals who received their second dose of Pfizer vaccine at least eight months ago. The county has planned to give booster shots to eligible people at its vaccine clinics, but drugstores, health care providers and community health clinics are also expected to have the booster vaccine after final FDA approval.
State expected to update MyTurn system
Blanco said the state is expected to update the MyTurn appointment system for people to make a booster shot appointment. County vaccine clinics will likely allow some walk-ins when appointments are left unfilled or are canceled. The county will release more details when additional information is available.
At Friday’s meeting, the FDA panel recommended the Pfizer booster dose for seniors but said not enough evidence was presented to justify widespread administration of the booster vaccine. Older adults and people with compromised immune systems might not acquire immunity as well from vaccines.
An additional dose of Pfizer or Moderna was authorized in August for immunocompromised individuals.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, health and human services director for California, said in a joint statement the committee’s decision underscored the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The committee of experts reinforced the importance of unvaccinated individuals getting vaccinated as soon as possible to protect both themselves and their loved ones,” Ghaly said in the statement with state health officer Tomas Aragon.
State and local health agencies are faced with sending strong messages that the newly authorized booster vaccine is for older residents who received previous Pfizer doses.
Those who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines won’t be eligible for the Pfizer booster shot. The timing for an additional dose of the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines is not known at this time.
Moderna has applied for FDA clearance of a COVID booster shot, but there is no estimate on when it might be available. The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine became available in March and those recipients won’t start reaching the eight-month mark until November.
Preliminary studies on breakthrough cases in Israel suggested a pattern of waning vaccine immunity after eight months, particularly for seniors.
A study published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report followed frontline healthcare workers from mid-December to mid-August, finding that vaccine effectiveness in preventing infection fell from 91 percent to 66 percent after the COVID-19 delta variant became the dominant strain.
Another CDC study this year offered a sobering conclusion for people who have not been vaccinated at all: the rate of COVID infection is five times higher in unvaccinated people and they are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with serious COVID illness.
“Although some people may need to wait to get the booster, the original vaccine still gives great protection against severe illness and death,” Blanco said.
This story was originally published September 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
